Something Wicked (12 page)

He counted the locks as they were rattled backwards from inside. One bolt at the top, one in the middle, a chunky chain and a final one near the bottom. The door was inched open to reveal a
stubby old woman in a flowery dress that might have once been a duvet cover. She had a huge, clearly dyed, afro-style perm that looked like an oversized frizzy lollipop. Her wrinkled, gnarled face
broke into a grin. ‘Well, look who it is.’

Andrew stepped forward, arms out, his foot sinking into the sopping welcome mat. ‘Hi, Aunt Gem.’

Gem was barely five foot tall to start with, and her hunched frame didn’t quite reach Andrew’s chest. She bear-hugged him around the midriff, squeezing with far more gusto than
someone in their seventies should manage. Andrew tried not to wince but as soon as she pulled away, she was pinching his stomach.

‘Look at you wasting away. I’ve got some lamb shanks in the freezer.’ She scuttled down the hallway, leaving Andrew by the door, calling over her shoulder. ‘Don’t
forget to lock up and take your shoes off.’

Andrew did as he was told, wriggling out of his boots and placing them next to his aunt’s fluffy slippers.

So much for not stopping.

The hallway was dark, embers of bright light creeping into the corners from the far door through which Gem had disappeared. Andrew blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the dimness as he slid the
bolts into place. He wasn’t sure how a woman in her seventies consistently reached the bottom one, given he almost threw his back out straining for it.

Her creaky voice reverberated through the tight space from the room beyond. ‘Did you put the chain on?’

‘I’m doing it.’

Click-clunk.

‘What about the bolts?’

‘I’ve done those too.’

‘Even the bottom one?’

‘Yes!’

Andrew padded through the hallway in his socks, emerging into a cream kitchen that would have been in vogue around the time he was born. Aunt Gem was bent over a chest freezer, top half-buried
inside it.

‘I’ve not got time to stop,’ Andrew protested.

‘Nonsense, you’re wasting away. How’d you ever expect to find yourself a young lady if you’re not eating properly?’

There was a scrape of ice as his aunt leant further forward, both feet coming off the floor as she almost toppled into the freezer. Andrew lunged ahead, placing a hand on the back of her dress
and pulling her out. She emerged with the lamb in a polythene freezer bag.

‘I’m perfectly healthy,’ he said.

‘Rubbish. I’ve got a freezer full of these. That ginger lad over the way came knocking on everyone’s doors saying he knows a farmer with a herd of lambs that had to be put down
because they were ill. He said the meat was going cheap, so I took half-a-dozen off him.’

‘They’re probably stolen.’

Aunt Gem dropped the freezer lid into place, jumping back as a mist of ice seeped out. ‘Nonsense. He’s a good lad, whatever his name is. Does all sorts around here. Reg’s
television was on the blink the other week and he got him a brand-new one. One of those flat things.’

‘That was probably nicked, too.’

She bustled around Andrew towards the cooker, twiddling the knobs until a low hum started. ‘You sit yourself down and it’ll be about forty-five minutes. Do you want some
veg?’

Andrew placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Gem, I’m only here for a few minutes. I came to take Rory for a walk.’

Her wrinkly hands hovered over the stove before a frenzied bout of knob-twiddling made the low hum go away again. ‘Oh.’

‘I can come back another day if you want to go out somewhere? Or I’ll take you shopping again?’

She crossed back to the freezer, with an over-the-top limp, her entire body suddenly more frail than it had seemed twenty seconds earlier. ‘No, no, don’t you worry about me.
I’m only your dear old aunt stuck away in a tiny little flat.’

‘Gem—’

‘I remember when you were a little child and your mum was poorly. Who was it who took you in for that week, wiping your nose, cleaning your backside . . . ?’

The week Andrew’s mother was poorly had apparently happened when he was around six months old, something he couldn’t remember but had never been allowed to forget.

‘I’ve offered so many times to help find you somewhere better than this.’

The freezer popped open again, sending an icy cloud into the air.

‘Ha! I grew up here. Why would I want to leave?’

‘Well, the offer’s always there. Anyway, I’m really busy with work. I just popped around for Rory. We can do something later in the week if you want?’

The lamb shank landed with a thump in the bottom of the freezer, followed by a louder clump as his aunt dropped the lid.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want to be an
inconvenience.
God forbid the woman who wiped your backside as a baby should want to cook you dinner.’

‘I’ll come around for tea tomorrow if you want—’

‘I’m at bingo on Fridays.’

‘Saturday then—’

‘Reg is having a party on Saturday. One of the meals on wheels women is his niece, so
she’s
putting on something nice for us all.’

‘Sunday?’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing Sunday.’ She brushed past Andrew towards the living room. ‘Rory, where are you? Someone’s here to see you.’

Aunt Gem’s living room looked as if someone had cleared out a seaside tat shop and dumped everything in her flat. The walls were lined with plates, snow globes, still sealed
rainbow-coloured lollies, coins, postcards, sticks of rock, miniature houses, statues, tea-cups and an almost infinite amount of useless crap in neat rows. All mementoes of places someone she knew
had visited. Gem herself had barely left the estate on which she was born, with a bus ride to the city centre considered a day out.

She tottered around an armchair that had more claw marks than fabric. In the corner, a brown and white pug with large brown dinner-plate eyes pottered his way out of a pile of blankets and
started sniffing around Andrew’s socks.

‘I wouldn’t smell them, pal.’

Aunt Gem dropped herself into the armchair, before levering herself back up instantly with an annoyed tut. ‘Someone’s going to have to lock up after you.’

Andrew bent down to give Rory a pat as the dog chugged his way into the kitchen, already out of breath, like a mini barrel on legs.

‘Don’t get him all excited,’ Aunt Gem chided.

‘I’m just taking him for a walk.’

‘Yes, but he’s a delicate little thing who doesn’t like having his feelings hurt. Go at his pace, not at yours.’

‘You say that every time.’

‘That’s because he gets back here all sleepy and the poor little fella ends up dozing all evening. He wouldn’t wake up for the Corrie theme tune last time and you know how much
he likes that.’

Andrew walked through to the hallway and started putting his boots back on. As it went, getting in and out in under ten minutes was quite good going.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Aunt Gem asked.

‘Out to the woods for a wander.’

She crouched low to the floor, holding her hand out for the pug to lap at. ‘You hear that, Rory? Your uncle Andrew’s taking you out to the woods.’

Rory the pug didn’t seem too enamoured, turning in a circle with the elegance of an oil tanker and only marginally greater speed.

Andrew plucked the dog lead from the hook on the wall. ‘I’ll bring him back in a couple of hours.’ He bent down and pecked his aunt on the head. ‘And don’t let me
forget about that lamb shank lunch.’

Rory trotted across the packed, mulched leaves of Alkrington Wood with his tongue hanging out. Plumes of his breath twirled into the air as he bobbed
left-right-left-right-left-right-left.

A few years previously, Aunt Gem had found him at the bottom of the stairs outside her flat, eye socket smashed, blood dripping from his nose and a long slash along his side from where a bunch
of local shits had used him for a game of football. She’d phoned Andrew frantically, had him drive her to the vets, promised to pay whatever it cost, and then spent the next three months
studiously nursing him back to health.

Now the soppy little sod was the centre of her life, except that she wasn’t agile enough to take him for anything more than a gentle trundle across the green once in a while. Andrew was
killing two birds with one stone by taking Rory for a walk while simultaneously not having to explore the woods by himself as if he was some sort of perverted flasher. Not to mention the fact that
it was impossible to overestimate how much goodwill the chubby brown and white softie could get him. If Andrew was actually in the market for trying to find a new girlfriend, the first thing
he’d have done was go out with Rory for a day and he’d have had friendly female dog-owners falling over themselves to fawn over the pug. And, hopefully, Andrew himself.

Rory’s stubby legs and underbelly were already covered in filth, leaving Andrew wondering how the car rental company was going to feel about the tangy wet-dog smell upon the
vehicle’s return.

Aside from the dogging incident, Andrew had never been to Alkrington Wood before but he followed the path, coat zipped tightly like a straitjacket. The rain had stopped as he’d left Aunt
Gem’s but that meant the stinging cold had settled. Winter was on its way but if it could sod right off for an hour or two, it’d be highly appreciated.

Two thirty-something women in matching purple coats and red woollen beanies waved a hello, although their grins were definitely directed more towards Rory than Andrew.

As the patches of wet leaves got thicker, the trees became denser, with the direction of the path harder to figure out. The giveaway was each time Andrew’s feet went through the top of the
brown and green covering directly into a puddle. By the fifth occasion, both of his feet were drenched and he was trying to stop himself from shivering.

Rory continued bumbling along without a care, occasionally glancing backwards towards Andrew, silently asking why he kept stopping to look at his feet.

‘All right, pal, I’m right behind you.’

Andrew continued over the next ridge, where a grey-haired man with an olive-green waxed coat twice the size of him was whistling like a demented teapot.

‘Poppy, come back over here. Poppy!’

A dirt-soaked Labrador emerged from a copse of bushes, tongue lolling to the side. Rory sidled across to Andrew and hid behind his legs. He didn’t like other dogs.

The man turned to Andrew, lop-sided grin on his face. ‘I don’t know about yours but my Poppy loves it when it rains.’

‘Rory just likes being out.’

The man crouched and pulled a lead from out of his pocket, connecting it to the Labrador’s collar.

‘Lovely out here, isn’t it?’ Andrew said.

‘Beautiful.’

‘Still, not quite the same since those fingers were found . . .’

The man’s face darkened slightly as he straightened himself. Instinctively, he nodded towards a bank to his right, exactly as Andrew had hoped. ‘Aye, those police-types had it
taped off for months. All that digging and what did they find? Sod all and then they sodded off. Every time you walked past, you got the dirty looks, as if you should have known there were three
fingers buried up there.’

‘Always the way, isn’t it? Spend all their time worrying about people going five miles an hour over the speed limit instead of catching real criminals.’

The man began to walk away with Poppy at his side but he nodded in ferocious agreement. If in doubt, bang on about the police catching ‘real’ criminals and someone would always agree
with you.

When they were out of sight, Rory poked his head through Andrew’s legs, made sure the coast was clear and then began plopping along again. Andrew headed towards the direction in which the
walker had nodded, calling over his shoulder towards the pug. ‘This way, buddy.’

The ridge was steeper than it looked, thick clumps of leaves slipping from underneath Andrew’s feet as he tried to climb. Rory sauntered a few steps behind, waiting until Andrew had
slipped his way up the slope before deciding it was safe for himself. As Andrew reached the peak, he turned back to ensure Rory was with him. Aunt Gem was going to be beside herself. The little dog
was definitely more brown than white now, streaks of mud running all around his body, his stumpy tail wagging back and forth furiously.

Over the crest and it was clear where the police had been digging. They’d done their best to replace the dirt they’d lifted but the land was uneven and boggy. The leaves were a lot
thinner, with much of the mud visible for the first time since Andrew had moved deeper into the woods. Instead of the condensed woodland of lower down, the plants were far more widely spaced higher
up, which Rory took full advantage of, galloping down the slope until he began to roll, completely covering himself in filth.

Andrew followed, feet sinking into the soft soil, squidgy thick mud oozing over the top of his boots. He hadn’t brought any others out with him, so there was a good chance the car rental
company was going to hammer his credit card for cleaning costs. It’d probably still be less than parking in the city centre.

At the bottom of the decline, Rory was waiting faithfully. The moment Andrew arrived next to him, he shook himself viciously from side to side, sending a spray of muddied water in all
directions.

Andrew peered down at himself, flecks of dirt drenching his jeans, with thicker gloops of muck covering his lower legs. Great.

He took a step towards the upwards slope, feet sinking again. As he lunged forward, trying to haul himself out, he stopped, realising where he was. This wasn’t just the area where
Nicholas’s fingers had been found, there was something different about the spot. Andrew wrenched his feet from the mud and turned as best he could. The natural curve of the land had created a
basin shape that was almost round. Plotted almost equidistantly around the edge were three bare trees, which, if he drew a line from one to the other, would create what was more or less an
equilateral triangle within the circle.

Just like the improvised tattoo that Nicholas had on his wrist.